This shoe could be utilised for indoor or outdoor activities; it could be a low-cut basket-type shoe or high safety boot especially for the practice of hiking.
Now, even though particularly provided for such applications the shoe could also be utilised in other applications, especially as a town shoe.
Two main lacing means are known for effecting clamping of the shoe around the foot of the user, specifically a lacing system cooperating with eyelets or even a clamping strip generally comprising a scratch and cooperating with a side of the shoe.
The present invention constitutes a refinement to shoes equipped with lacing means having at least one clamping strip.
In this respect, a first relatively simple embodiment is already known in which the strap is submitted to one side of the shoe and the end of which passes through an opening or an eyelet fixed to the other side of the shoe to be fixed back on the first side especially by means of scratch.
This lacing mode is particularly interesting, since it executes clamping and unclamping of the shoe which is at the same time rapid, simple and reliable.
This embodiment is especially adapted for equipping children's shoes.
All the same, this embodiment also has disadvantages and especially, because clamping is done solely at the level of the instep and also because the force of the clamping tends to decrease, the clamping strip capable of progressively loosening as a function of the movements of the shoe.
There is also the disadvantage of clamping only the upper and/or the top of the shoe, resulting in the foot being compressed on the sole.
There is also a second known embodiment with a clamping strip in which the clamping strip passes through a space made at the level of the sole, wraps around the shoe, then passes through an opening or an eyelet to reach a position on the other side of the shoe.
This embodiment enables increased clamping relative to the first abovementioned embodiment allowing more specialised utilisation of the shoe; this lacing mode especially has already been proposed for making weight lifting shoes, with proper execution of this sport requiring significant contact between the sole of the shoe and the foot of the user to prevent loss of adherence of the weight lifter during exercising.
Here too, this embodiment has disadvantages, especially the fact that this type of lacing does not prevent significant play at the level of the ankle of the user, lacing being in fact circumscribed at the level of the instep of the user, that is, at the level of the tarsus bone and does not permit efficacious clamping at the level of the ankle.
The aim of the present invention is to rectify the disadvantages of the two embodiments of the abovementioned lacing means with a clamping strip and propose a shoe especially for sport and leisure fitted with lacing means having at least one clamping strip allowing clamping on the foot of the user at the same time at the level of the instep of the user and his articulation.
Another object of the present invention is to propose a shoe, especially for sport or leisure, characterised in that the clamping strip can be positioned and fixed easily and reliably.